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For the second time this season, the Detroit Red Wings are facing some steep adversity after some less than ideal results in their schedule.
Following a five-game winning streak that came on the heels of a disappointing 5-1 setback in their Home Opener, Detroit has dropped consecutive games to the Buffalo Sabres and New York Islanders by a combined 11-4 score.
Detroit has a chance to get back on track when they face the St. Louis Blues on Saturday at Little Caesars Arena. Focusing on a one-game-at-a-time approach and moving past the frustration of their previous loss will be crucial to starting a new winning streak.
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“Obviously it’s a long season, first and foremost,” forward James van Riemsdyk said following Saturday’s practice. “We’re still eight games it, but it’s that one day at a time approach. You always have to have that approach, no matter what. You need amnesia after every game.”
While that approach is commonplace in the NHL, it’s what helps build the kind of consistency the Red Wings enjoyed during their five straight victories.
“It’s always those cliches, but I feel like that’s just the way to find more of that consistency,” van Riemsdyk said. “We had a decent run there in a few games, but I think really focusing on those details that made us effective in that way and managing the game the right way, that’s how you give yourself a chance to win.”
McLellan, who pulled zero punches in his assessment of how his club played on Oct. 9 against the Canadiens, said that Detroit’s loss to the Islanders featured several of the same kind of miscues on the part of the Red Wings that led to easy offense for their opposition.
“We would have preferred a different outcome,” McLellan said of Detroit’s recent pair of losses. “The Islanders game reminded me very much of Opening Night against Montreal, a lot off the rush and a lot of errors when you watch it again, you go like, ‘Why are we doing that?’ We definitely have to clean that up if we want to give ourselves a chance at success.”
Playing with the lead is always an advantage, and Detroit struck first on Wednesday against the Sabres. Unfortunately, it turned out to be their only lead of the brief two-game road trip.
While they won’t always score first or have the lead, McLellan is looking for pushback on Detroit’s part in those situations to avoid things getting out of hand as they did on Thursday evening.
“We played better when we had the lead and had more jump in that situation,” McLellan said. “Certainly something we want to do every night, but when you can’t, you have to stay in the game long enough to try and work your way back in and we didn’t do that in New York the other night.”
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